The Only Souse Allowed On My Sidewalk at 3 a.m. Is Me

You thought you could sneak a few clubs by me, Demon Rum, but I cottoned onto you mighty swift like. The disreputable barrooms in my milieu have proliferated like arms, and I was curious: where does the Temperance Movement stand today? Surely a few mustachioed, scowling harridans hold the standard on some bleak mountaintop? I commanded my research team to find answers. My research team is lazy, and consists of me and Google, so little was accomplished. However, I discovered that the Women’s Christian Temperance Union still exists. To join, you pledge total abstinence and you pay dues. Here’s the pledge:

“I hereby solemnly promise, God helping me, to abstain from all distilled, fermented and malt liquors, including wine, beer and hard cider, and to employ all proper means to discourage the use of and traffic in the same.”

Dues are ten bucks. That could mean a loss of about five happy hour beers. If you take the pledge seriously, it means a loss of a lifetime of beers. I don’t want to lose a lifetime of beers. I want my neighborhood to lose a lifetime of beers. I need only one bar for my purposes. The other 39 bars have got to go. I’m making a list of the things I’m going to do when I get my time machine, and number 144 is “Transport Carrie Nation to my neighborhood for one merry afternoon of saloon smashing.” I would have her back home by dinnertime.